Alastair Cook trudged back to the Trent Bridge pavilion the other evening with his mind in turmoil and his face set in stone. Dismissed for a pittance, one more anti-climax to add to a lengthening list. He tried to disguise his desperation, but his anxiety was all too evident. A game which had once come so easily to him was now posing intractable problems.

He was acutely aware that around the ground, around the entire country, his professional future was being urgently discussed. And nowhere more than in the broadcasting boxes, high in the grandstand, where the ancients sat in judgment. A few were stern, most were sympathetic, but all had captained England and all were employed to express their opinions.

And so we heard from Sir Ian Botham and David Gower, Michael Atherton and Bob Willis, Nasser Hussain, Alec Stewart, Michael Vaughan and Andrew Strauss. And we knew, beyond question, that before the day was done Cook would become sharply aware of their increasing disillusion with their hapless successor. As any of the people on that list could tell him, such is the lot of the captain of England.

Downcast: Alastair Cook trudges off after his cheap first-innings dismissal

Now it is difficult to sympathise with a sublimely gifted athlete of 29 years, a man at the peak of his sporting powers. Yet when we consider the immensity of Cook’s problems, a measure of sympathy is irresistible.

His batting is one thing; while his current form may be bleak, a record of 25 Test centuries and some 8,000 Test runs at an average of 45 is evidence of exceptional pedigree. The good days will surely return; it is merely a matter of time. But the captaincy is a different matter altogether; not so much a job, more an office.

The skipper of the England football team is not burdened by comparable responsibilities. The armband is lightly exchanged when a muscle tweaks or a substitution is effected; seniority tends to be the main criterion, leadership skill a desirable extra.

By comparison, the cricket captain is a man apart; appointed by the game’s elders and anointed by the Establishment. He is expected to possess professional excellence and social assurance, the tact of a diplomat and the patience of a saint. He should be an inspirational leader, a sagacious tactician, a father-confessor and an occasional whipping boy. And, above and beyond all that, he must score Test centuries and win Test series. England expects.

Of course, such expectations are thoroughly impertinent, given the shameful paucity of cricket in State schools and the diminishing public support for the county game. But excuses will not be accepted. And so Cook must cope with the twin pressures of his own currently uncertain form and the recurring crises of the side in his charge. He must attempt to forge something formidable from a team that have been too swiftly stripped of too many important players.

In bad nick: Cook has not plundered a century since May of last year

And he must endure the absurd distractions of Kevin Pietersen and his sycophantic retinue, as well as the irksome inanities of Shane Warne, a man who continues to resent the fact that he was never entrusted with the Test captaincy of Australia. For a moment, just before the start of this series, Cook allowed himself a brief, exasperated protest at Warne’s provocations, but by and large his self- control has been admirable.

Unlike his principal critics, the captain has never actively pursued celebrity. While his face is familiar, his voice is rarely heard in public and even then he tends to restrict himself to conventional, media-trained phrases: ‘We’re at the start of a cycle … great honour to lead the team … pride of wearing the three Lions.’

He sees every phrase as a hostage to fortune. And yet there is an appealing decency about the man. His private life is properly protected, he never feels the need to seek out a cheap headline and — most important by far — his players are clearly eager to perform for him. Following a skipper as distinguished as Strauss was never going to be easy, but those close to the scene detect signs that Cook is growing into the job.

Public patience will be required, especially at a time when it is challenged by adverse events. And Cook’s own patience must not fray, even though Warne, having found a populist theme, is unlikely to keep quiet, while Pietersen will publicly prattle whenever his chums remember to jerk his strings. Yet the sense is that he will come through, that there really is something in the cliché which dictates that form is temporary but class is permanent.

Uncertain start: Peter Moores' second era began with a first home Test defeat to Sri Lanka

One big innings may be all that it takes; one long, fluent, utterly productive performance, which sees the head still, the feet moving instinctively and the ball flying off the middle of the bat. And the hope must be that the day will soon arrive. For our finest sportsmen are awarded lavish measures of fame, wealth and public adulation. But from time to time, there is a price to be paid in return.

Alastair Cook was paying that price at Trent Bridge. And his suffering offered one of the most poignant images of an English summer.

Keep calm! It’s a bike race, not World War I

In a tone normally reserved for State funerals, the television reporter announced: ‘Tonight, Brazil is a nation in mourning’. And what savage catastrophe had prompted that assertion? The national team had lost a football match. True, they had been rather heavily beaten in undignified circumstances and a measure of indignation was in order. But ‘mourning’ — defined as the expression of sorrow for somebody’s death — was a grotesque exaggeration.

We have all done it, of course. We have all described a missed penalty as a tragedy or an own goal as a disaster, so that when we are visited by real tragedy, real disaster, we have no adequate vocabulary. The torrents of tears, the synthetic hysteria, the ludicrous ‘end of the world’ inquests; they are all evidence of our failure to separate the make-believe of sport from the reality of everyday existence.

On their knees: David Luiz and Luis Gustavo were disconsolate following a crushing defeat to Germany

And yet, the sporting week held an even more preposterous piece of hyperbole. A few days ago, there were some distressing spills in the Tour de France. One poor chap went over his handlebars, another finished up in a ditch, while Chris Froome, last year’s champion, was forced to withdraw after a couple of damaging crashes. The Garmin–Sharp team manager, one Jonathan Vaughters, described it as ‘absolute war’.

This, of a stage which set off from the town of Ypres.

PS

Luis Suarez has failed in an appeal against his four–month ban from football. The appeal was supported by the Uruguay FA, who argued that his conviction was unsafe due to ‘lack of evidence’. It was a bold ploy, which might easily have succeeded but for the teeth-shaped scars on the shoulder of Giorgio Chiellini, along with the eye–witness evidence of 39,706 people in the stadium as well as millions of television viewers across the planet. Suarez (above, after joining Barcelona) is said to be preparing a new appeal. He is claiming mistaken identity.

Unmistakeable: Luis Suarez joined Barcelona with a trademark grin

PPS

The great ones, the best who ever played the game, tend to own a World Cup winner’s medal. Pele, Maradona, Moore, Beckenbauer; it is an illustrious list. Now Germany’s improvement in this tournament has been genuinely dramatic, and their destruction of Brazil was a performance for the ages. They would be worthy world champions. Yet when we look again at that list, there is one name which demands admission. I dearly hope to see Lionel Messi joining the pantheon at the Maracana.

Cometh the hour: Will Lionel Messi join the immortals as Argentina chase a third World Cup win